We’ve all heard of cacao being good medicine for the heart. With Valentine’s Day coming up, we’re nerding out on exactly how cacao supports heart health. Did you know that the heart sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart? The heart has its own intelligence, something ancient traditions knew well and science backs up. When we drink cacao, we are nurturing the central intelligence of our heart and supporting its healthy functioning on multiple levels.
Continue reading to discover the many heart benefits that cacao offers!
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Cacao As Heart Medicine
Cacao is known as heart medicine and this occurs on multiple levels, including the physical, emotional, energetic, interpersonal, and cosmic! With cacao, we can anchor in a more heart-centered and heart-healthy life.
Physically:
- Cacao has vasodilating effects, relaxing your blood vessels and increasing blood flow throughout the body by up to 30%. This means that more blood (life force energy) is moving through your body and nourishing all of your systems.
- Cacao contains flavonoids, which are naturally occurring compounds found in plants and belong to a larger class of compounds called polyphenols. Flavonoids are associated with various health benefits, including significant cardiovascular health benefits such as supporting healthy blood pressure, reducing inflammation, and improving cholesterol levels.
Emotionally:
- Cacao supports overall mood regulation with beneficial molecules/precursors such as Anandamide, Serotonin, Phenylethylamine, and Dopamine.
- Cacao also increases emotional capacity and supports us accessing and expressing the full range of our emotions, from deeper presence in the moment to liberating stuck emotions to be felt, healed, and released.
Energetic:
- Studies have shown that the heart radiates an electromagnetic field about 3 feet outside the body that can be felt by other beings. What we are feeling, can be felt by others. ‘Heart coherence’ is the ability for us to pick up on information that is being emitted nonverbally through the heart. In addition, the heart communicates significantly with the brain, affecting the specialized systems of the body such as the vagus nerve and nervous system. These also emit energetic frequencies that can be felt and impact the beings around us.
- Similar to the process of neuroplasticity in the brain, cacao can support healthy heart coherence so that we are able to re-wire heart habits towards more presence, joy, and love and emit these to the beings around us as well.
- To dive deeper into the science of heart coherence, check out this article at Psychology Today.
Interpersonally:
- Cacao drops us more deeply into the heart and awakens the senses, which expands your attunement, empathy, and connection with others.
- To put this into deeper practice, invite a friend or lover to try this partner practice with cacao.
Cosmically:
- Cacao is known as the gift of the gods, and it connects us more deeply to our place in the cosmos. We remember the nourishment of our earth mother and our relationship with elemental and cosmic forces that comprise the universe.
- This remembrance can drop us into a state of gratitude for the earth, the water, the sun, and the air that sustain our lives. Finding a state of gratitude brings us back into our hearts as we remember we are not alone and rather, that we are vastly connected with all that is. And from there, we’re invited to express our love for this complex, delicate, and biodiverse web of life.
Truly, Cacao is Heart Medicine and a Gift From The Gods!
